Looking down the slope, my heart fell. We had been travelling hard all day and managed to cross most of the distance to the second entrance but now, daylight was abandoning us. We had to decide whether to try climbing down the slope during dusk, hoping that we got down, or at least to a somewhat safe spot to rest, while there was still light out, or we had to sleep up on the ridge, hoping that we didn’t get disturbed by some too powerful Pokémon.

Given that the Pokémon we had seen up here, a few Gligar and Geodudes, had been manageable, we decided not to take the risk and climb down. Between the almost certain danger of falling in the dark and the potential danger, the potential danger simply wasn’t as threatening.

As always, we drew lots for guard shifts, each of us giving up roughly two hours of sleep in order to make it through the night, and as luck would have it, I drew the third shift, one of the worst. It meant getting woken up after only four hours, having to be vigilant and awake, before hoping to get back to sleep for another two hours, leaving you groggy and tired in the morning.

After Lucas woke me, and I grumbled a little, I moved to a convenient rock, making myself as comfortable as possible in the dark night. Up on the ridge, a cold wind was blowing, making things extra chilly, but I didn’t want to call out Charm, for the same reason we had avoided making a fire. It might attract unwanted attention.

Instead, I decided to call out my little Vio, to get some companionship. That she was able to detect hostile Pokémon from a greater distance than I was only a side benefit, but one I greatly appreciated.

She appeared in a flash of red light, looking around for a moment, before looking up to me.

“No battle, little one,” I assured her, as the last time I had called her out, it had been to fight a Geodude during my turn to lead the way. With the typings what they were, Charm and Su had some serious trouble dealing with Gligors and Geodudes, so Vio had been my go-to partner for the last few days. It meant that Charm was a little jealous and Su even more surly than usual, but there was nothing I could do to change that.

Noticing that Vio was shivering a little in the cold wind, I pulled her onto my lap, hugging her close. She happily reciprocated, snuggling into my embrace, while making happy, cooing noises that brought a smile to my face.

“We were reckless,” I quietly admitted, the fear still vivid in my mind, “We only had a vague idea of what would await us up here. The path up the mountain was relatively simple, with almost no Pokémon challenging us. Lured us into thinking there are no strong Pokémon around.” I shook my head, determined to take the reminder yesterday to heart. A Pokémon that could shake the ground in a radius of multiple kilometres was no being we had any business to get close to.

Just at that moment, as my thoughts turned gloomy, I heard a distant rumbling. It echoed in the valleys around us, reflecting back and forth, making it sound like the entire Coronal Mountains were shaking. Gripping Vio tightly, I wondered if I should pray to Arceus, or maybe to Giratina, or Palkia and Dialga, any of those who had the power to keep me safe in the night.

Maybe in response to my fear, Vio started to softly sing, an incredibly faint, pink glow surrounding her horns. Closing my eyes, I put my head against hers, letting her scent and voice be the only thing in my mind, even softly humming along to her wordless song.

After a minute or two, my mind was calm enough to let me look up, to focus outward and be somewhat vigilant, as a guard should be. When there was nothing wrong in our surroundings, I looked down at the still singing Vio and decided to join her gentle song, adding my own voice to her wordless tune.

Together, we sang, how long, I didn’t know. But the longer we sat there, the less fearful I became until I could look to the following day with confidence in my eyes.

When the time came to wake Cliff, I realised that Vio’s breathing was hoarse, her whole demeanour exhausted.

“Little one, you overdid it,” I gently chided her, even as my heart went out to her. She had exhausted herself, in order to ease my anxiety. In response to my chiding, she stopped singing, the glow around her horns fading and snuggled into me. After holding her for a bit, I called her to rest in her Pokéball and went to wake Cliff, before getting some more sleep myself.

When morning came, after a quick breakfast, we began to make our way down the slope. It was just as exhausting to climb down, as it had been to climb up, only that we had to be even more careful. Walking down, your momentum was heading downhill, so if you stumbled, you would only keep going and getting faster, until suffering a sudden stop at the end.

Just as we had when moving up, we moved in line, carefully making our way down. I made a mental note to get a rope in town, so we could actually support each other when we moved through the Coronal Mountains. With four people, three had a good chance to arrest the tumble of the fourth, whereas with two, unless the second one was braced, it was more likely that a sudden tug would make the second one lose their balance, too. I would have to talk to the others about my idea, but hopefully, they’d accept.

By the time we got down into the valley, it was almost noon and all of us were covered in sweat, our knees aching. But we were down.

“Okay, the entrance should be over there?” I gestured, correlating the landmarks I could see to those Sylva had told us about.

“Let’s search,” Cliff agreed, looking at the same landmarks. We now had a good idea of where the entrance should be, but there were multiple openings and each of those could be the right one.

We made our way over and just before getting there, Claire called us all to a stop. “Let me call out Twiggy, who knows what sort of rock-types made their lair in these cracks,” she argued, her Pokéball already in hand.

“Right, lead the way,” I stepped back, letting Twiggy take the lead, with her following after.

Twiggy appeared in a flash of red, sniffing the air for a moment. “That way,” Claire gestured, following after him.

Twiggy hadn’t crossed the distance, when a massive, mostly round figure with stubby, rocky arms came lumbering out of the cracks we were moving towards, It looked like a massive boulder, a Graveler, the evolution of the Geodudes we had fought repeatedly before.

“Twiggy, show him what you got, Razor Leaf,” Claire ordered, for once not bothering with raising her defence first. Instead, she simply had Twiggy attack, using the massive type-advantage to full effect.

As the Graveler manifested a boulder out of slate-grey energy, lobbing it towards Twiggy, Twiggy started launching sharp leaves of green, striking the Graveler. Neither tried to dodge, turning it into a simple contest of strength, only that the green leaves easily sheared into the rocky body, quickly depleting the Graveler’s energy.

I noticed Claire pointing her Pokédex at the Graveler and pout a little, before putting it away. Curious, I checked its strength myself and could understand her reaction. The Graveler would never amount to much unless someone wanted to pour a massive amount of effort and resources into training it. From the expressions on Cliff’s and Lucas’ faces, neither of them had such plans, and I wasn’t terribly interested either. There were better options to focus my efforts on.

“Knock him out, Twiggy,” she ordered, obviously not interested in catching the rock.

In response, Twiggy let out a growl, redoubling his efforts, letting loose a barrage of Razor Leaves. The Graveler didn’t simply curl up and faint, it tried rolling over Twiggy, only to run into a hard shell, as Twiggy braced and used his Withdraw to raise his defence even further. The resulting backlash was enough to send the Graveler into unconsciousness and we could start investigating the entrance to the Underground.